


Nobody's But Mine

by silentghost



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, Character Study, Demiromantic Adrien, Friends to Lovers, Hair Dyeing, Light Angst, M/M, Smoking, Teenage Drama, Yearning, You get the idea, a billion drabbles in a trenchcoat, adrien is going through some things, luka is feeling a lot, no beta we die like men, of a sort, they're like 16/17 here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28122588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentghost/pseuds/silentghost
Summary: In which Luka spends more time with Adrien and writes a song.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71





	Nobody's But Mine

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: DONT LOOK NOW BUT I JUST REALIZED I NEVER WROTE A SUMMARY FOR THIS AT ALL LMAO??
> 
> this came out of me listening to the killers' hot fuss (2004) nonstop during finals and thinking andy you're a star fits rlly well OwO
> 
> anyway i kinda like this kind of writing style that's all mixed up and disjointed and a lil vague,, have fun lmao
> 
> !! also as a heads up luka smokes cigarettes in this; it's mentioned a couple times but not in great detail

The sky is a colorless blanket of clouds as autumn grips Paris in her cold fingers. Luka takes another drag of his cigarette, breathing out heavily and watching the smoke disperse in the frigid air. He always makes a beeline to the back of the school once classes are over for a smoke or two. There’s a fire escape that’s big enough for him to sit cross-legged on. Concentrating on not coughing helps quiet the continuous noise in his head. He sighs and leans against the railings. The week is almost done.

A back door to his left opening and slamming shut brings Luka out of his peaceful stupor. He looks down and sees a familiar head of fluffy blonde hair. He doesn't know Adrien Agreste that well, but it doesn't take much to know he's upset about something. Luka flicks away some ash and carefully drops down from the fire escape steps.

"Hey… are you alright?"

Adrien's eyes are red with unshed tears when he faces him. He smiles bashfully and rubs his face. "Luka. Didn't think anyone would be here. I usually find other places to hide."

Luka shrugs. "You don't need to explain yourself if you don't want to, but I'm here if you need to vent."

Adrien's eyes shift to his shoes. "Well, okay. Father's been a hardass lately when it comes to my grades. He keeps saying these passive aggressive things about college and I’m getting tired of it. He's making me stay late for tutoring."

"Aren't you pretty good in school?” 

"I know! He just--" He frowns deeply, eyebrows drawn together in frustration. "He's just looking for a way to see me fail at something, I guess."

It doesn’t seem like that’s his only problem. "Feel free to stay here all you want. I don't mind the company." Luka fiddles with the cigarette in his hand, grasping for something else to do or say. He thrusts his arm out and offers the smoke.

"You wanna try?"

Adrien is about to reply when footsteps shuffle their way.

"Luka."

It's his sister Juleka. He drops the cigarette and digs his sneakers into the ground, extinguishing it. 

"You said you'd come to practice today." Right. It's Wednesday, the day Kitty Section carved out to practice and write songs.

"Of course." Luka smiles at her then brings his focus back on Adrien. "See you around, Adrien Agreste. I hope you feel better."

-

The first time they meet Luka is convinced the sun is out to get him. 

It's the middle of July, and Rose, Juleka, and Luka are jamming together on the Liberty. Rose hums along to whatever Juleka strums on her bass while Luka plucks out random notes. The heat is sweltering. He’s sweating profusely in his dark clothes and is about to put his guitar down to grab water from below deck when Rose jumps up and squeals excitedly.

“You guys came!” she says.

A few of her friends that Luka recognizes clamber aboard: Ivan, Mylène, and Marinette, who's bringing along someone he doesn't know.

He seems a few centimeters shorter than Luka, with bright green eyes and a glittering smile directed to his friends. It doesn't escape Luka's notice the way Marinette clings to his arm and stumbles over her words when she talks to him. Luka stores that observation away for later. He approaches the crate Luka is sitting on and shakes his hand.

"Hi, I'm Adrien Agreste, I'm in Juleka's class. I just started last semester but didn't get to hang out with anyone outside of school until now."

"Adrien Agreste," Luka repeats, and he swears for a split second the beginning of a melody fills his head. Something hard hitting and intense, a repetitive riff. He decides then that he likes the sound of Adrien's name. He never stops saying his name in full, either. "I'm Luka, Jules' brother. I'm in the year ahead of you guys."

"C'mon, let's get your instruments set up and we'll see if this works out," Rose commands and steers Adrien towards the keyboard.

The blonde beams as sunshine beats down on their heads and all Luka can think is  _ cute. _

-

Juleka's round eyes catch Adrien behind him. "You can come too, Adrien. We could use you for this new song Rose has."

Adrien smiles gratefully and gathers his backpack. The three walk at a leisurely pace, talking idly about their classes and the rehearsal. Adrien gets distracted by someone walking a large dog when Juleka takes the opportunity to bump Luka's shoulder with hers. She slaps at his jeans until she hits the rectangular bump of a cigarette pack.

"I thought you told Mom you would stop," his sister says with a pout. 

"Mom's not here, is she?" Luka grins. At her unimpressed look, he holds his hands up in defense. "Hey, it's not that bad! Just a couple a day, I won't even finish this until the end of the month." 

She just looks even more upset at that. She speaks so softly Luka doesn't notice at first. "Just don't get hurt."

He doesn't think she's talking about smoking anymore.

Adrien comes back to them with a bright smile on his face, talking about dogs and hamsters and all the things his father doesn't allow him to have. The sails of the Liberty come up in the distance. The rest notice their presence when they arrive at the ship and they jump down to greet the trio. 

Luka just observes.

-

They’re at the back of the school again. The days are growing colder. Luka has to cup his hands around his cigarette now when he chills after school. He shuffles next to Adrien, who’s struggling to put a hat on. The tips of his ears are red before they’re plunged into the fluffy beanie.

"You’re famous,” Luka declares. "I've seen you before. You're all over magazines."

Adrien freezes. 

"Did you, uh--" He swallows warily. "Did you not know that?"

Luka shakes his head. "Nah, I don’t follow celebrity stuff. Jules has mentioned photoshoots every now and then but I assumed she meant it as a friend group thing.”   


Adrien peeks up from his hat. “And you don’t mind? Hanging out with a famous model, I mean.”

“Not at all.” Luka leans against the brick wall of the school to keep Adrien out of the wind. “You’re still you.”

“Even if I’m busy all the time?”

“Well, you’re here now, right? So what if I don’t see you in the next week, or even the next month? Being with you now is what matters.”

Luka smiles as Adrien blushes  _ hard _ . He curses himself for not having his guitar on hand with him. He thinks Adrien would like what he has to play.

-

Adrien holds the box of hair dye gingerly while stepping onto the Liberty.

“Thanks for coming, Adrien,” Luka says. He tosses bags of groceries on deck and makes quick work of putting them away. “Sorry it was a little spontaneous-- everyone else had plans and I couldn’t make the trip alone.”

Juleka is on a date with Rose while their mom is busy with “pirate business,” as she called it, and Luka isn’t close enough with his classmates to ask for a favor like this.

“No problem,” Adrien replies. “Thank  _ you _ for bringing me along. I don’t think I stepped foot in a supermarket since I was little!”

Luka just smiles. “We can head down to my room, there’s a bathroom there.”

He stifles a laugh as Adrien steps below deck and wanders to his side of the room like a hesitant kitten. His gaze roves around the Jagged Stone posters and vinyl’s on the wall, even taking time to look through the case of guitar picks Luka has collected over the years.

“Are you sure I’m the one who can help you with your hair? I’ve never done this before. What if I mess up and you go bald and you look like an---  _ oh _ .”

He stops at the foot of Luka’s bed, staring at the flag hanging above the headrest. It's just three horizontal stripes, pink on top of purple on top of blue, but Adrien oggles at it like it's an alien. Luka knows he'll need to approach this carefully.

"That's my pride flag. Do you know it?" At the small shake of Adrien's head he replies, "It's for bisexuality.”

"That's… " Adrien trails off. "Nice."

Ah. 

Luka recognizes his tone, the wavering sentences similar to how Juleka sounded when she came out to him. The sounds of Adrien's aura are all over the place when earlier he sounded almost relieved to be there. Now it's discordant and jumbled. Luka decides to change the subject for now.

“Can you bring that chair over? There’s better ventilation here than in the bathroom.”

And so Adrien dons the gloves that came with the dye box and starts coloring the tips of Luka’s hair. He looks nervous at first, hands kind of shaky, but Luka trusts him. He leans against the chair and relaxes against Adrien’s hands combing through his hair. Soon enough they’re listening to music while waiting for Luka’s hair to dry. The tips are a deep teal.

“It looks nice. You did a good job of coloring it.”

“Yeah?”

Luka catches his eye. “Yeah.”

When Juleka comes home she finds the two laughing on the floor, Adrien clutching Luka's shoulder and Luka his stomach.

-

The weather is getting warmer. Luka switches his heavy pullover for his usual blue hoodie. There’s a song in his head that won’t stop. He spends his time between classes smoking and playing with Kitty Section and scratching out lyrics that’re too  _ much _ for him to share. It’s not ready yet.

He and Adrien are doing homework in the Liberty. Or, well, Adrien is plowing through physics while Luka frowns at his notebook. He’s glad for the company, though; they’ve been hanging out a lot after school for the past few weeks.

“Do you write lyrics to the songs in your mind?” Adrien asks before popping a chocolate in his mouth. He’s sprawled on the floor beside Luka’s bed, looking like he belongs there.

Luka closes his notebook and hums. “Never thought of it before. I usually just let the melody play through me. Hey, is that chocolate?”

Adrien nods and offers a heart-shaped box. Half of the truffles are already gone. He chooses a salted caramel one.

“Did someone… confess to you?”

“With a face like this, what do you think?” Adrien waves a hand around. “A girl gave it to me before class today.”

The music that constantly plays in Luka’s head silences. “What did you say?”

"I told her no." At Luka's silence, he continues. "It's the same thing I tell everyone-- that we have no real connection and I don't have time for a relationship anyway."

How regularly does this kind of thing happen? Luka doesn't want to find out. He tosses his notebook to the side and brings his history homework out.

-

Luka is a guy who observes. He's never one to steal the spotlight but doesn't mind being in it once in a while, hence why he's lead guitarist but not lead singer of Kitty Section. That, and Juleka was the one who formed the band anyway, and she can't deny her soft spot for Rose.

So it isn’t hard to notice Marinette’s crush on Adrien and the way he just-- ignores it. She would bend over backwards to include him in the conversation and make him little gifts all the time. Luka's seen the way her eyes sparkle with pride on the rare occasion that Kitty Section needs someone on the keyboard and the rest of the gang come to watch. He doesn't understand why Adrien doesn't do anything about it or, even worse, why he feels so jealous.

Then again, does he really know Adrien? They only ever hung out behind the school or in the Liberty. They never ate at a café together or fed pigeons at the park. He was never invited to any fencing tournaments or recitals. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to be able to do all those with Adrien.

But. Maybe he's been wrong about this feeling-- this  _ song _ \-- that's been stuck in his head ever since that autumn day.

Maybe he isn't as observant as he thinks.

-

The last time Luka goes to the back of the school to smoke he spots Adrien, eyes red and teary once more. He's staring at his phone with a conflicted look. Luka steps closer and he looks up, startled. 

"You okay?"

He barks out a wet laugh. “No. Not at all.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“This isn’t something you can fix. I just came here to, I don't know, angst it out alone."

_ Of all places, why did you come here then? _ Luka wonders. He doesn’t dare voice it out loud because Adrien looks so sad.

He grounds himself with the smell of asphalt and cigarette smoke and the way Adrien's hair has grown in the time they haven't seen each other. It sweeps away from his face like the fluffy feathers of a chick. He knows his own hair has lost its green tips; he never found the time to touch up the dye. Luka musters the strength to smile graciously. 

“I see. I’ll give you some space.”

He turns around and takes a few steps when Adrien’s voice, uncertain and stuttering, calls back to him.

"Luka! I'm-- sorry. I have a lot going on right now. But I'll see you around?"

"Sure."

-

After that afternoon something changes between Adrien and Marinette. In the few moments Luka spends with Juleka and her friends he sees them giggle more often with each other. They look closer. They look  _ happy. _

And Luka-- Luka can't take it.

He doesn't visit his old smoking spot anymore. In fact, he avoids it. He walks a couple of blocks away from the school building to a small park now. There's a wooden bench right in the center of it where he likes to sit (more like mope according to Juleka) and watch people play with their dogs or have a picnic.

Liking Adrien didn't happen overnight. It came to Luka like a new sweater: warm and comfy but unfamiliar, something to try on and get used to. He wants to know everything about him. He wants to know if he gets quiet or raises his voice when he's angry. He wants to know his favorite color. He wants to know how his eyes look in the pale light of dawn.

He's probably too late.

He coughs through a drag he took a little too quickly and folds over his guitar, straightening up only to make direct eye contact with the guy he's been avoiding.

"Adrien Agreste." He tries to sound normal and not like his chest is collapsing from the yearning in his heart.

There's a determined spark in his eye. "Can I sit with you?"

Luka gestures to the open spot on the bench.

"I rarely see you anymore," he pouts. "When I ask Juleka about you she tells me to find you myself, but it's hard to do that when we don't even have each other's numbers."

Luka averts his eyes at that. "I thought you would be busy, since you're a model and all that."

"I'm never too busy for you." 

"Well I…" His heart clenches. 

The words come to him then. The song that plays whenever Arien is around, whenever he laughs, whenever Luka says his name, it feels complete. His fingers itch before he’s extinguishing his cigarette and scrambling for his guitar, plucking out a few notes before strumming with confidence, all while maintaining eye contact. To Adrien,  _ only _ Adrien, he sings.

_ leave your number on the locker and I' _ _ ll give you a call _

Adrien’s eyes drop to Luka’s hands, covered in calluses and nails in need of a new paint job. Something in his face shifts, like the last piece of a puzzle slipping into place. Luka commits the look to memory and carries on.

_ leave your legacy in gold on the plaques that line the hall _

Luka always expresses himself best with his guitar. He puts all his feelings into the words and the chords. He remembers Adrien's rosy cheeks all bundled up in a scarf and beanie; him jamming on the keyboard; the smug turn of his lips when he tells a particularly horrendous pun. Adrien's eyes widen.

_ in a car with a girl, promise me she's not your world _

“ _ Oh.  _ Me too you dummy,” Adrien breathes out before grabbing Luka's collar and smushing their lips together.

Distantly he remembers to put his guitar down gently before cupping his cheeks and returning the kiss. He has to slouch a little to reach Adrien. His mind buzzes with this information as he drinks in more of him from the taste of his lip balm to the brush of Adrien's nose against his. Then reality sets in and Luka pushes him off.

"Um, what the fuck. What about Marinette?"

"What about her? She's my QPP. Do you not know-- oh!” Adrien scoots closer to Luka and crosses his legs so that his knee touches Luka’s thigh. He says, “it means queerplatonic partner. We’re like best friends but different. I guess a better equivalent would be soulmates? There’s nothing romantic between us or anything, no kissing. I really would only want to do that with you anyway.”

Luka's mind races to catch up. He hopes Adrien can fill in the rest of the blanks. "So you're…?"

"Demiromantic. Listen," he turns uncharacteristically serious, "I like you, Luka, a lot. I feel like we have a connection. And for me, I only start to have feelings for someone if we're close or if we spend a lot of time together. I’d really like to take you out to know you properly.”

Luka is stunned into silence. He still can't believe what just happened. He touches his lips. Then he drops his gaze from Adrien's hopeful eyes to his guitar leaning against the park bench.

"Is this real?" he asks with a tinge of disbelief.

Adrien laughs with his whole body, shoulders shaking and arms pushing on Luka. "This is real! Sorry if I sprung this on you, maybe I misinterpreted your song or something--"

" _ \--Your _ song. It's your song." Luka takes a deep breath. "It's what you sound like to me."

Adrien blushes, deeply moved. "Oh."

Luka likes that look on his face. He hopes he can be the one causing Adrien's cheeks to flush a dark red forever. "I'll take you up on that date, Adrien Agreste, but only if you do one thing."

"What?" he says with a smile that rivals the sun.

"Kiss me again?"

-

Spring opens the skies like a flower in bloom. Luka has to cover his head with his books to keep from getting wet in the downpour. He trudges to Adrien, dry under his huge umbrella.

“Ew, you’re soaking,” he says. He tilts the umbrella so Luka gets less rain on him.

“The door’s like a meter away, I can’t be that wet,” Luka complains.

Adrien just hooks his arm around Luka’s and heads in the direction of the Liberty. “Let’s go.”

They walk in the rain, and Luka smiles fondly at the way Adrien hops over little puddles on the sidewalk. The sounds of raindrops hitting the umbrella tap out the beat to a new song in his mind. He and Adrien sound like the harmony of a guitar and a piano, like a rushing faucet, like the tinkling of beads on their matching bracelets.

It sounds like love.

**Author's Note:**

> yearning should 100% be its own tag besides pining methinks
> 
> btw i made a twitter just for mlb oh no  
> follow @nbkagami if you also love her with all your heart


End file.
